Anecdotes about Vegas, Low Stakes Poker, and the Characters Who Enjoy Both.

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

The Girl With the Magic Cleavage

As regular regulars have figured out,
usually when I’m in Vegas on a Saturday, I enjoy playing a tournament.It’s most likely the Binion’s $140
deepstack.If not that, the Aria $125 is
also a great option.

Before I got to Vegas for the first
weekend of March Madness, I realized that I was going to be disappointed that
first Saturday. As part of my day job with PokerAtlas,
I knew that neither Binion’s nor Aria
were going to run their regular tournaments.Binion’s had their Spring Classic going on, and on that Saturday they
were running a $300+ event for a WSOP seat.Too rich for my blood.And Aria
was in the middle of their “Race for the Clover” event, so that tournament too
was over $300.I just wanted a deepstack
tournament with a $125-$150 buyin as usual.

But I was out of luck.One option was to play cash all day.Not a bad idea for a Saturday filled with
tourists coming into town to bet about a zillion college basketball games.But I feared if my luck wasn’t good I might
need too big a bankroll to last all day playing cash.I kind of wanted a tournament to take up some
time.The best idea I came up was the
$65 tournament at Treasure Island.It
had a $1K guarantee (since reduced to $750) and is basically the same
tournament I played a few years back at the “Grumpament” (see here).

They had a great turnout this
day.Over 70 players, filling 6 tables.
There was one cash game going on and the room only has 7 tables, so the room
was max capacity.It would have been a
nice tournament to win—first place was over $1,500.And the players at my table were really
bad.I should have crushed it.But I didn’t.

The bad players were almost all
calling stations.They called you down
with anything and would of course sometimes hit.Since there were multiple players calling
down their weak draws, somebody almost always hit something.I need to learn how to play in games like
that.It seemed to me my best option was
to wait to get a hand and then get max value for it.Trouble is, I never made a hand.So, not making any hands against these
calling stations meant I busted out in the fourth level, barely after the first
break.

While I was approaching the TI parking
lot, I noticed the Wynn across the diagonally across the street.It had been awhile since I played there so I put
the idea in the back of my mind of maybe walking over there after I was done at
TI.So when I busted so early, that’s
what I did.

At Wynn, I encountered “The Girl With
the Magic Cleavage.”This gal comes to
the table and that caught my interest, always nice to see a female join our
heretofore strictly male table.She was
cute, dressed very conservatively at first glance, and actually seemed to be
wearing a lot of clothing, perhaps hiding the fact that she might have been a
pound or two overweight.As she was
getting settled in her seat I turned away to play a hand.When I looked back over to her, suddenly
cleavage had magically appeared.I swear
it wasn’t there when she first sat down.Hmm…..Then as it turned out, based on the first few hands, it did indeed
seem like the girl had magical powers…whether it emanated from her cleavage, I
can’t be sure.

As she was getting settled in, the
dealer asked if she had a player’s card.She said she didn’t and then explained, “I just got to town.First time in Vegas.”A few of us welcomed her and then she added,
“First time playing poker.”Really? That
would be interesting.Did she mean first
time playing poker ever or did she mean first time playing in a casino?

Well, it didn’t take long to get more
information.The dealer asked her if she
was ready to get dealt a hand.She
asked, “Do I have to post?”

Ok, that put the lie to her claim that
she’d never played poker before.You must
have played a poker –in a casino, no less—to even know to ask that
question.To even know what it means to
post.So I knew I had to keep an eye on
her.Truth be told, she never acted like
she didn’t know what she was doing.

In fact, the very first hand she was
dealt, she raised.I don’t recall much
of the action but she won a smallish pot at showdown and showed Ace-Jack for
the win.

The next hand she raised again, to
$9.When it got to me, I looked down at
pocket Jacks.I certainly hadn’t figured
out anything about magic cleavage girl, so I just called.It folded to the table’s resident Crazian,
who was one of the blinds.He made it
$40.Now it was getting interesting.

I was eager to see how magic cleavage
girl would respond.If she had another hand
like Ace-Jack, would she call a three-bet?Well, she started counting chips and I realized she was going to
re-raise.She settled on $87 (total).

I had been card dead and those Jacks
had looked pretty nice when I opened them but they didn’t look so good now so I
folded without hesitation.But the
Crazian called and it was heads up.

The flop was low, and almost immediately,
the Crazian announced “all-in.”The girl
had bought in for $200 and the Crazian had her well covered.She didn’t waste any time calling.He showed pocket 9’s.She flipped over a couple of Aces.The board bricked out and she had gotten a
nice double up, second hand of the session.How lucky for her….not only getting those Aces but getting them against
a guy who would double her up with only an unimproved pair of 9’s.

Less than an orbit later, she raised
again, had a couple of callers.The flop
was 8-3-3 and it was checked around.A 7
came out on the turn, she bet and another guy shoved. She snap-called.She had the guy covered, but not by that
much.She showed pocket 8’s.He showed pocket 7’s.Another near double up.

It was quite a run for her.I left soon thereafter so I have no idea how
she ended up.But if it really was her
first time in Vegas, it was quite a welcome.

There’s nothing really to say about
the lousy session I had there at the Wynn.The session I had later at Caesars (this was the same night I checked
out the new Slut Parade, see here)
had only one interesting hand, my last one.Before I get to that, I’ll talk about the guy playing scared.There was a guy there who, when I had arrived
to the table, had about $1,200-$1,300 in front of him.I was only there a few minutes when I heard
him ask the dealer, “I can’t take any of this off the table, can I?”Of course, the dealer told him he could only
take money of the table if he left the game.He stayed, but the big stack obviously affected his play.I was sure that this guy was just having the
best run of his life and had never played so deep before.

This was the session that featured the
aggro Brit who button straddled face up (see here).I mentioned the Brit’s buddy who was also an
aggro.That guy became the nemesis of
the guy who was nervous playing the $1,200 stack.Soon after the aggro got there, the nervous
guy bet $100 on a flop of 10-9-8, two clubs.The aggro shoved for over $500.The nervous guy tanked forever.He had the dealer count the bet.Finally he folded.The aggro
showed Ace-Queen, neither of which was a club.In other words, he had air.The
nervous guy said he folded a set.The
nervous guy laughed awkwardly but I’m sure it was killing him.

There was another time he folded to
the same guy’s shove on the river.The
board had a King & Queen on it and also a possible straight.He took forever to fold his pocket 10’s face
up.The aggro showed his pocket
4’s.I’m pretty sure there was one more
hand when the nervous guy folded to this same guy’s all-in bluff.

He ended up losing about 1/3 of his
big stack, mostly by making his own (bad) bluffs that were called (some of them
by yours truly).But he wasn’t bluffing
all in.

You know, one of the nice things about
the Caesars poker room is the location.There’s easily half a dozen other poker rooms within walking
distance.Once the guy got to the point
of asking if he could take money off the table, he should have cashed out and
gotten into another game with a normal buy-in in one of those other rooms.

My last hand, I was on my second
buy-in (don’t ask) and I had about $190 left and was ready to call it a night,
down to what I promised myself would be my last orbit.I limped in with Ace-5 of clubs.One guy made it $10, another guy made it $20
and another guy called the $20.I was
nearly done so I decided to call the $20.All told, five of us saw the flop.

It came down 7-3-2.The 7 was red, the other two cards were both
clubs.I had the nut flush draw, the
gut-shot straight draw and the steel wheel draw.One guy bet $30, another guy called that, the
big stack made it $90, the next guy called that.I called.The guy who bet $30 folded.The
guy who called the $30 shoved for about $160, the big stack shoved and of
course I shoved too.It was a monster
pot.

The turn was a red 9.The river was black 10, but a spade, not a
club.I had Ace high.Damn.The guy who called $30, then shoved had flopped a set of 7’s.The big stack showed pocket 9’s.Note, he had gone all in on the flop before
he had a set.He had also been the
preflop three-bettor.I didn’t see if
the short-stack showed his hand.I just
left, totally defeated.

Tough day of poker when almost all of my
blogging material came from hands I wasn’t in.

Once again, I didn't get the email notice that you had commented so I just noticed this when I woke up this morning. Sorry for not approving this sooner, you were actually the first to notice this. Good catch.